After grabbing Cannes’ Un Certain Regard preemed Oliver Laxe’s Fire Will Comeearlier this month, the Brooklyn based distrib KimStim have gone back to the Cannes sidebar to land yet another prize winner in Bruno Dumont’s Joan of Arc. Dumont has been on a remarkable film per year run since 2016’s Slack Bay with On a Half Clear Morning set to premiere at a major film fest next year. KimStim (who released Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc) plan to release Joan of Arc in the summer of 2020. We were at the awards ceremony to witness Laxe and Dumont receive their prizes. Here is the full press release:
KimStim has acquired all US and Canadian rights to Bruno Dumont’s Joan of Arc the esteemed filmmaker’s long-awaited sequel to his groundbreaking Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc (released by KimStim in 2018). Joan of Arc had its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival and, as with Jeannette, stars Lise Leplat Prudhomme as Joan and the screenplay adapted from the writings of French playwright and poet Charles Péguy. The deal was negotiated between KimStim’s Co-President, Mika Kimoto and Luxbox’s Head of Sales Hédi Zardi.
In the 15th century, both France and England stake a blood claim for the French throne. Believing that God had chosen her, the young Joan leads the army of the King of France. When she is captured, the Church sends her for trial on charges of heresy. Refusing to accept the accusations, the graceful Joan of Arc will stay true to her mission.
Bruno Dumont’s decision to work with a ten-year-old actress re-injects this heroine’s timeless cause and ideology with a modernity that highlights both the tragic female condition and the incredible fervor, strength and freedom women show when shackled by societies and archaic virile orders that belittle and alienate them. j
KimStim will open the film this summer in New York and Los Angeles followed by openings in most major markets.
Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).
